Ellen Martin

Ellen Martin (1826-1854) was the fiancee of the American filibuster William Walker. While she was deaf and mute, she was known to be well-educated and beautiful, and she supported abolitionism. Martin died of cholera in 1854.

Biography
Ellen Martin was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1826, the daughter of John and Clarinda Martin. At the age of five, she contracted scarlet fever, which left her unable to hear or speak, and she was sent to the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in 1836 and then to a deaf school in West Hartford, Connecticut until 1841. When she returned to New Orleans as a young woman, she fell in love with William Walker, who communicated to her in French sign language. The well-educated and opinionated Martin became a liberal, and she agreed with her fiancee Walker that slavery should eventually be abolished on a state-by-state basis, not expanded, as E.G. Squier believed (and rudely shouted at the deaf Martin). Martin died of cholera in 1854, shortly after attending Walker's trial for violation of the neutrality act and the party at which Squier convinced many to support Manifest Destiny.